their rations. Animals, to be kept in good
condition, and fit for proper service, should eat their ten and twelve
quarts of grain per head per day, with hay in proportion--say, twelve
pounds.

I wish here again to correct a popular error, that the mule does not
eat, and requires much less food than the horse. My experience has been,
that a mule, twelve hands high, and weighing eight hundred pounds, will
eat and, indeed, requires just as much as a horse of similar dimensions.
Give them similar work, keep then in a stable, or camp them out during
the winter months, and the mule will eat more than the horse will or
can. A mule, however, will eat almost any thing rather than starve.
Straw, pine boards, the bark of trees, grain sacks, pieces of old
leather, do not come amiss with him when he is hungry. There were many
instances, during the late war, where a team of mules were found, of a
morning, standing over the remains of what had, the evening before, been
a Government wagon. When two or more have been kept tied to a wagon,
they have been known to eat each other's tail off to the bone, And yet
the animal, thus deprived of his caudal appendage, did not evince much
pain.

In the South, many of the plantations are worked with mules, driven by
negroes. The mule seems to understand and appreciate the negro; and the
negro has a sort of fellow-feeling for the mule. Both are sluggish and
stubborn, and yet they get along well together. The mule, too, is well
suited to plantation labor, and will outlast a horse at it. The soil is
also light and sandy, and better suited to the mule's feet. A negro has
not much sympathy for a work-horse, and in a short time will ruin him
with abuse, whereas he will share his corn with the mule. Nor does the
working of the soil on southern plantations overtax the power of the
mule.

_The Value of Harnessing properly_.--In working any animal, and more
especially the mule, it is both humane and economical to have him
harnessed properly, Unless he be, the animal cannot perform the labor he
is capable of with ease and comfort, And you cannot watch too closely to
see that every thing works in its right place. Begin with the bridle,
and see that it does not chafe or cut him, The army blind-bridle, with
the bit alteration attached, is the very best bridle that can be used on
either horse or mule. Be careful, however, that the crown-piece is not
attached too tight. Be careful, also, that it does not draw t